Two days passed: the Mission folk Out of their rosy dream awoke. Some of them looked a trifle white; But that, no doubt, was from earthquake fright. Three days: there was sore distress, Headache, nausea, giddiness. Four days: faintings, tenderness Of the mouth and fauces; and in less Than one week,--here the story closes; We won't continue the prognosis,-- Enough that now no trace is seen Of Spring or Mission of San Joaquin. Moral. You see the point? Don't be too quick To break bad habits: better stick, Like the Mission folk, to your _arsenic_. On a Cone of the Big Trees. _Sequoia Gigantea_. Brown foundling of the Western wood, Babe of primeval wildernesses! Long on my table thou hast stood Encounters strange and rude caresses; Perchance contented with thy lot, Surroundings new and curious faces, As though ten centuries were not Imprisoned in thy shining cases! Thou bring'st me back the halcyon days Of grateful rest; the week of leisure, The journey lapped in autumn haze, The sweet fatigue that seemed a pleasure, The morning ride, the noonday halt, The blazing slopes, the red dust rising, And then--the dim, brown, columned vault, With its cool, damp, sepulchral spicing. Once more I see the rocking masts That scrape the sky, their only tenant The jay-bird that in frolic casts From some high yard his broad blue pennant. I see the Indian files that keep Their places in the dusty heather, Their red trunks standing ankle deep In moccasins of rusty leather. I see all this, and marvel much That thou, sweet woodland waif, art able To keep the company of such As throng thy friend's--the poet's--table: The latest spawn the press hath cast,-- The "modern Pope's," "the later Byron's,"-- Why e'en the best may not outlast Thy poor relation,--_Sempervirens_. Thy sire saw the light that shone On Mohammed's uplifted crescent, On many a royal gilded throne And deed forgotten in the present; He saw the age of sacred trees And Druid groves and mystic larches; And saw from forest domes like these The builder bring his Gothic arches. And must thou, foundling, still forego Thy heritage and high ambition, To lie full lowly and full low, Adjusted to thy new condition? Not hidden in the drifted snows, But under ink-drops idly spattered, And leaves ephemeral as those That on thy woodland tomb were scattered. Yet lie thou there, O friend! and speak The moral of thy simple story: Though life is all that thou dost seek, And age alone thy crown of glory,-- Not thine the only germs that fail The purpose of their high creation, If their poor tenements avail For worldly show and ostentation. A Sanitary Message. Last night, above the whistling wind, I heard the welcome rain,-- A fusillade upon the roof, A tattoo on the pane: The key-hole piped; the chimney-top A warlike trumpet blew; Yet, mingling with these sounds of strife, A softer voice stole through.